It’s A Shame About Ray…

Today folks, I wanted to tell you all about a man I know named Ray Williams.

You may have seen him on the news recently, his hair freshly dyed, or maybe you read about him on the front page of the Telegraph, or the two page spread that followed on pages 4 and 5, you may have even heard him get called a “grub” on air by right wing 2GB talkback host Ray Hadley before hanging up on him.

It seems this former bus driver is too good for the buses now….

Ray "Fat Cat" Williams

Ray Williams likes to say he came from the transport industry, and he did, just as the people who clean the trains at night do. Ray was a bus driver with big plans.

Ray ran for Liberal pre-selection for State Government in the seat of Hawkesbury NSW, challenging sitting MP Stephen Pringle. Ray defeated Pringle under allegations of branch stacking.

Most shocking of all were allegations of Williams bribing a local pastor in order to gain congregation members votes. These allegations were never proved either way, it was one mans word against the other.

I am not going to suggest to you who should be believed, you can decide for yourself. The local parish pastor, or the dodgy wannabe politician. I’ve made my choice…

The Hawkesbury seat is the safest Liberal seat in the state, only a complete imbecile could lose it for the Liberals. Ray almost did that year….

Stephen Pringle ran as an independent, and scooped up a massive chunk of the conservative vote, it must have been a wake-up call to Ray, who seemed to think Liberal branding would make it an easy win….

Last years elections were a disaster for Labor, Labor lost an average of 17% across the NSW Electorates. In Rays seat of Hawkesbury, one of the electorates with the $20Billion promise of the Nth West Rail Link, Labors votes dropped 1%, in fact in the booths outside of the Rail Links influence, the Labor vote increased at every booth, some as high as 25% Even the Rouse Hill booth, where Ray spent most of election day, and is the major station on the promised rail link, Labors vote increased…

Ray claimed that he had the biggest swing to him in the state, and he did… as Stephen Pringle didn’t run this time, so all those conservative voters came flooding back to The Liberal Party. However, the fact is in terms of conservative votes, Rays seat had one of the lowest swings.

These things I know, as I was the Labor candidate for the Hawkesbury seat I have studied the figures in detail….

Rays election campaign focused on two things primarily, public transport, and government waste.

Public transport was a big one due to the promise of the Rail Link, and the debacle of the M2 that Nick Greiner, a previous Liberal Premier left us. The M2 only started to be widened under the previous Keneally Labor govt.

The supposed waste that Ray always went on about, was money that he saw as being spent needlessly by the government. Anybody that he saw as getting money needlessly Ray liked to call “Fat Cats”. These Fat Cats should be sacked, or made to resign was the message Ray preached.

Ray "Fat Cat" Williams in one of his forner 8 lives

Judging from what has emerged this week, I am assuming that Rays resignation will come any day now. I mean, if you don’t stand up for what you believe, or practice what you preach, you are less than a man…. In my view anyway.

This week, those of us who live in the North West of Sydney were outraged to hear that Ray Williams was in fact a Fat Cat. Claiming $259 a night of taxpayer money to stay in the city when parliament sits, as it is too far to travel for poor Ray….

You might think that $259 gets Ray a nice hotel room, but no, that money of yours pays off Rays mortgage. You see Ray got himself a city flat that we can all pay off for him…

The hide of anyone to campaign that they understand the transport needs of working families, when they are sitting in their inner city flat to avoid it….

Then again, maybe he stays in town to avoid getting busted for drink driving as his mate Liberal MP Bart Basset did last year.

As the local MP, you are supposed to be able to relate to your electorate, sympathise with their problems, understand their issues. Ray it seems, thinks he is above all of that, with one of the major issues in the area being public transport, and one of the others being the roads. Rays decision means he is totally unqualified to comment on any of these issues, and any comment he does make on the rail link, bus services, or the M2 should be taken with a huge grain of salt.

Someone so interested in local transport issues, you would think he would take the time to attend a meeting with the Hills Transport Working Group, but alas, this is yet to happen. But I will let him off this one, as I understand where they meet is probably too far from Ray for him to get to. They meet right under his electorate office…. Seriously, he is on level 2, the committee meets on level 1… It is comforting to know he takes an interest….

Ray thinks his electorate is rural, and thinks that he lives in a rural area… It is worth noting that Ray was given a promotion by Barry O’Farrell, Ray was made Parliamentary Secretary For Western Sydney. Note the last word in that title, Sydney.

This may be a news flash for Ray, but Sydney is the capital of this state, it is where Parliament House is, and it is where you charge us $259 a night to stay at your own place…

At this point I should point out that Ray is actually entitled to receive this payment, however, it is an option he does not have to take. Someone who made such a big deal about waste, should certainly not take it. There are other MP’s living further away from the city who don’t claim this entitlement, because they have a thing we call Integrity… Ray, it is called Hypocrisy, and in this case it is spelt with a capital H.

Ray actually lives in Rouse Hill, kind of… Let me briefly explain… Until a few years back, where Ray lives was called Nelson. When Ray was a councillor in the Hills Shire Council, he pushed hard to have the suburb boundaries changed. Eventually Ray got his way, and his house left the suburb of Nelson, and became part of Rouse Hill. The value of Rays house shot up immediately…

I have been lobbying the council for months to change the name of where I live to Point Piper or Vaucluse , but to no avail….

A quick look at Rays website raywilliams.com.au tells you that Ray has been quite busy. Ray has a fully staffed office at Rouse Hill, I know of at least 4 people that work there, not including Ray (after all I did say work)

Ray "Fat Cat" Williams plays with a stuffed toy during question time

Rays website, is where those people who put their misguided faith in him can go to see the work he is doing and all the great things he has accomplished….

Pardon the language, but sweet fuck all….

According to his website, he has done nothing since August 2009, that’s right folks, last decade.

You would think that with all of the staff we have been paying for, they would have at least come up with a decent story as to what Ray has been up to, I mean other than fleecing the taxpayer.

To his credit, Ray has agreed to pay the money back, after seeing the outrage in the community caused by his actions. I hope we see this happen sooner rather than later, it may even give him something to put on his website.

Now that the “fat cat” is out of the bag, Ray has also yet to decide whether or not he will spend the $17,000 of taxpayer money on an overseas trip.

He had already applied for the money, but given the issues he is now facing, he is thinking twice about going. Still, at least he hadn’t decided where he was going to go yet, he just wanted the money side sorted out first I guess.

I could rattle on for ages about our Fat Cat Friend Ray, but I shan’t…. What I will do though to make it easier for anyone interested, is add a category to this blog site called Ray “Fat Cat” Williams and post previous blogs where he has appeared(there have been a few) in there, make sure you check out Christmas O’Farrell And The Plump Pussies.

4 thoughts on “It’s A Shame About Ray…”

I know that for the past few months Ray Williams has been dodging my emails in regards to why, according to Hansard, in 2008 he gave his support to the “Option 1″ Windsor Bridge (which will cause irrecoverable damage to the, now recognised, oldest Civic Square in Australia, according to the State Heritage Committee and the RTA/RMS reports) before the public were made aware of the 9 options in the July 2009 Options Report.

I have been asking the hard questions of Ray for some time now and the only response I received was from his secretary/PA, Greta and that reply was a simple “fob-off” to Kevin Connolly. Even though she said the email was forwarded on, I doubt it ever was.

Paul, thanks for this feedback. Ray Williams did a lot of talking about the Windsor Bridge during his campaign, saying that Labor mad made a mess of it. It seems to me to have become worse now under a Coalition govt.

If you can email me details to flsales@bigpond.net.au, I will chase it up also, this is also something that should come under him in his role as parliamentary Secretary for western Sydney.

I had a read. Excellent stuff. One could say the same with the Hawkesbury. It’s so bad here I’ve been forced to create a webpage to catalogue the issues here.

Re-sealing a road in the Hawkesbury apparently means a no-prep asphalt dump and rough spread out whilst leaving literally tonnes of loose gravel on the road. This, of course, gets flicked up into oncoming cars, or pedestrians (I have been the recipient of a stray gravel launch myself). Then, a few days to a few weeks later, all the rough potholes and bumps are back as the gravel settles.

Roads get repainted half-arsed. In fact, I took photos today where lines were repainted and less than ten feet away the lines were left faded…on the same street!